As a domestic worker, you have no control over your
life. No one respects you. You have no rights. This is the lowest kind of work.Hasana, child domestic worker who began employment at
age twelve, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, December 4, 2004

I worked [there] for three months. Sometimes I did not
get any food. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. and slept at 10 p.m. [My employer] shouted
at me, You are a poor person. You have to know your position, you are here to
work. I was not allowed to go out of the house. I had not seen my family since
I left home. I was not paid any salary. [My employer] hit me when she was
angry. Three times she hit. Once she slapped my face and then kicked me above
my right hip. It hurt and swelled up. I did not go to the doctor. She laughed
when I asked that I wanted to see the doctor.Asma, child domestic worker, age sixteen, Medan, Indonesia, December 13, 2004

Millions of women and girls around the world turn to
domestic work as one of the few options available to them in order to provide
for themselves and their families.1
Instead of guaranteeing their ability to work with dignity and free of
violence, governments have systematically denied them key labor protections
extended to other workers. Domestic workers, often making extraordinary
sacrifices to support their families, are among the most exploited and abused
workers in the world.

Abuses against domestic workers, typically taking place in
private homes and hidden from the public eye, have garnered increased attention
in recent years. The long list of abuses committed by employers and labor
agents includes physical, psychological, and sexual abuse; forced confinement
in the workplace; non-payment of wages; and excessively long working hours with
no rest days. In the worst situations, women and girls are trapped in situations
of forced labor or have been trafficked into forced domestic work in conditions
akin to slavery.

Increased awareness has unfortunately not been matched by
concerted government action. Hong Kong is one of the few places where the
government guarantees equal protection under its labor laws. The norm is for
governments to exclude domestic workers from these laws altogether, or to
provide weaker, poorly enforced regulations that leave employers enjoying
virtual impunity to exact excruciatingly long hours of work for grossly
inadequate wages.

Since 2001, Human Rights Watch has
conducted research on abuses against domestic workers originating from or
working in El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, the
Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Togo, the United Arab
Emirates, and the United States (see Appendix A). In over twelve different
research trips and numerous follow-up trips, we have interviewed hundreds of
women and girl domestic workers, government officials, employment agents,
employers, activists with private nongovernmental and faith-based
organizations, and representatives of international organizations.

Our extensive research reveals an alarming prevalence of
abuses against domestic workers. While we interviewed workers in each country
who were happy with their jobs, many more described deplorable working
conditions and egregious violations of their rights that are strikingly similar
across countries. Despite increasing attention and some positive steps,
governments response has thus far been inadequate. This compendium sets out
our findings with respect to the following overlapping categories: (1)
principal criminal abuses common to all domestic workers; (2) principal labor
abuses common to all domestic workers and exclusion from labor laws; (3)
specific concerns of child domestic workers; and (4) specific concerns of migrant
workers.2
We discuss best and worst government responses and practices, and present our
recommendations for action.

***

Several barriers inhibit estimates of the total number of
women and girl domestic workers at national and international levels.
Categorized as informal labor, most governments consider domestic work beyond
the scope of regulation and scrutiny. Hidden in private households, domestic
workers may remain unregistered and uncountedliterally invisible. Despite
these difficulties, some national-level estimates are available. The
International Labour Organization (ILO), which has conducted several national
baseline studies to determine the scope of child domestic labor, estimates that
more girls under sixteen work in domestic service than in any other category of
child labor.3
In Indonesia, the ILO estimates there are nearly 700,000 child domestic
workers, while in El Salvador over 20,000 girls and women between the ages of
fourteen and nineteen are domestic workers.

The numbers of women migrants has increased significantly
over the last three decades, and they now comprise approximately half of the
estimated 200 million migrants worldwide. Women and girls migrating as domestic
workers are an important part of this trend. The feminization of labor
migration is particularly pronounced in the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, where national-level estimates indicate that women comprise 60-75 percent
of legal migrants. The vast majority of these are employed as domestic workers
in the Middle East, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Of the estimated 850,000
workers from Indonesia and Sri Lanka in Saudi Arabia, the majority are women
and in some cases girls (using falsified travel documents) employed as domestic
workers. There are approximately 160,000 migrant domestic workers in Singapore and 300,000 in Malaysia. These numbers underestimate the true population as many women and
girls migrate outside legal channels and then find employment as domestic
workers.

Estimating the prevalence of abuse is also difficult given
the lack of reporting mechanisms, the private nature of work, the lack of legal
protections, and restrictions on freedom of movement of domestic workers. However,
there are many indications that abuses are widespread. In Saudi Arabia, the Indonesian, Sri Lankan and Philippines embassies handle thousands of complaints a
year. In January 2004, for instance, the Sri Lankan embassy estimated it was
receiving about 150 domestic workers each month who had fled their employers.4 In
Singapore, at least 147 domestic workers have fallen to their deaths from
hazardous workplace conditions or suicide. In most of these countries, embassies
have created shelters onsite to handle the huge numbers of domestic workers
seeking assistance for unpaid wages, physical or sexual abuse, or poor working
conditions. In many country studies around the world, the ILOs International
Program for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has found that working
conditions are so exploitative that domestic work is a worst form of child
labor.

In this report, the stories of abuse told by domestic
workers around the globe demonstrate the profound human cost of the negligence
and discrimination they experience. To protect their privacy, all the names of
domestic workers have been changed, unless otherwise indicated. In line with
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Human Rights Watch considers a child
to be any person under the age of eighteen.

Governments response to abuses against domestic workers
have largely been piecemeal and reactive. Domestic workers, at risk of rights
violations during recruitment, placement and employment, are often in
situations that prevent them from reporting abuses. Comprehensive and proactive
strategies are needed to provide oversight of labor agencies and recruiters,
monitor working conditions, detect violations, and impose civil and criminal
sanctions on abusive agencies and employers. Instead, in an overall context of
discrimination against domestic workers by excluding them from labor laws,
efforts to detect and sanction workplace abuse are severely limited. Laws that
should protect child domestic workers are poorly enforced. And although
countries of workers origin and countries of employment have adopted
initiatives to address abuse of migrant domestic workers, much needed legal
reform, enhanced oversight and regulation of employment agencies, and improved
access to mechanisms for redress and rehabilitation for abuse are still
lacking.

An appropriate legal framework is critical to protecting
domestic workers rights. Labor legislation in Hong Kong sets a positive
example: domestic workers have the right to a minimum wage, a weekly day of
rest, maternity leave, and public holidays. Most countries around the world,
however, exclude domestic work from their labor codes or provide for lesser
rights. Labor legislation must be complemented by criminal laws allowing for
successful prosecution of offenses such as physical, psychological, and sexual
abuse, forced labor, forced confinement, and trafficking in persons. In
increasing by 1.5 times the criminal penalties for certain abuses against domestic
workers, Singapore has rightly acknowledged the particular risks faced by these
workers. Punitive immigration laws, as in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, that discourage migrant domestic workers from fleeing abusive employers and militate
against pressing charges for criminal offenses, must be reformed. In Malaysia and the United States, domestic workers may get special visas to remain in the country to
pursue civil and criminal complaints, but reforms should be adopted to make it
easier to obtain authorization to work during this period.

Good laws become meaningful when accompanied by public
awareness campaigns, training of law enforcement, labor and immigration
officials, the existence of accessible complaint mechanisms, and effective
enforcement. Best practices here include the full protection of domestic
workers under Hong Kongs labor laws, and the prosecution and imprisonment of
employers who have physically abused their domestic workers in Singapore. This type of protection remains rare, however, and government authorities
charged with enforcing domestic workers rights often lack sufficient resources
and training to help them identify abuses and assist victims. Laws that could
be used to protect child domestic workers, such as Indonesias Child Protection
Act and minimum age for employment laws in most countries, are rarely invoked.

An adequate framework must be in place to regulate and
monitor recruitment, training, and employment conditions. Though certain
aspects should be improved, Singapores accreditation program for employment
agencies is a step in the right direction. Through the Philippines Overseas
Employment Administration, the Philippines has extended greater government
protections to Filipinas employed abroad as domestic workers, including a
standard contract that ensures a weekly day of rest and regulations that
require employers to pay most of the costs associated with recruitment and
placement. Monitoring of workplace conditionsa critical element to enforcing
domestic workers rightsremains weak to non-existent in most countries, in
part due to restrictions on the ability of labor inspectors to enter private
households. Mechanisms to blacklist employment agencies that break the law,
identify and blacklist abusive employers, and screen returning migrant domestic
workers are all necessary components of a comprehensive strategy.

Despite increasing recognition by the international
community of the systematic exploitation and abuse suffered by domestic
workers, much more international commitment and concerted effort is required to
end these abuses. The United Nations bodies such as the ILO, the UN Childrens
Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the International
Organization for Migration (IOM), and the Global Commission on International
Migration (GCIM) have begun to address the issue. However, there are often no
regional minimum standards on treatment of migrant domestic workers, leading to
a race to the bottoma rivalry to push the competitive edge of their potential
overseas domestic labor workforce by offering the fewest labor
protectionsespecially among countries of origin like Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and India. Economic cooperation bodies that established core minimum
labor standards have failed to address domestic work. Many governments have yet
to ratify the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All
Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (Migrant Workers Convention) or
to effectively enforce it. Governments need to pay much more attention to the
role of education reforms in preventing children from leaving school to be
domestic workers, or ensuring they can continue their education while working.

The UN General Assemblys High Level Dialogue on Migration
and Development in September 2006 will be an important venue for governments to
increase their cooperation regarding domestic work, to commit to strong,
sustained, and immediate actions to extend key labor protections to domestic
workers, and to create mechanisms for implementation.

Developing mass public information campaigns to educate
domestic workers, labor recruiters, and employers about domestic workers
rights and the penalties for committing abuse. Ensure dissemination of
this information in the languages spoken by domestic workers;

Gathering data on domestic workers in all
government labor force surveys, including data on labor complaints and
criminal cases involving domestic workers, disaggregated by sex and age.

Strengthen labor protections for domestic workers and
enforcement by:

Creating and publicizing accessible complaints mechanisms
for domestic workers who experience problems such as violence, unpaid
wages, or poor working conditions, including hotlines, support for aid
groups that assist domestic workers, helpdesks at locations frequented by
domestic workers, and coordination with the police and immigration
officials;

Prioritizing the elimination of the worst forms of child
domestic labor and, with the assistance of the International Labour
Organization, instituting a Time-Bound program to eliminate the worst
forms of child labor;

Strictly enforcing fifteen as the minimum age of
employment for all sectors, including domestic labor;

Extend equal protection of the labor laws to domestic
workers, including rights to a just wage, overtime pay, weekly rest days,
benefits, and workers compensation.

Enact specific regulations governing minimum age of
employment, hours of work, forms of labor likely to be harmful to
children, corporal punishment, entitlement to rest and leisure, and
compensation.

Ratify the Convention on the Protection of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their Families.

Ratify the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; the
International Labour Organizations Forced Labour Convention, Minimum Age
Convention and Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention; and
the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade,
and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery.

Develop protocols and train police officers on how to
respond appropriately to domestic workers complaints, how to investigate
and collect evidence in such cases, and to provide referrals for health
care, counseling, shelter, legal aid, and in the case of migrant domestic
workers, referrals to their embassies.

Collect detailed information on all abuse cases and
complaints made by migrant domestic workers. Track and make publicly
available data on types of abuses, the number of formal complaints, the
time involved to resolve cases, and the final resolution. Data on
employment agencies found to have unethical or abusive practices should
also be available to potential workers and employers.

Ensure the right of all children to free and compulsory
basic education. In particular ensure that school fees and related costs
are not barriers to childrens enjoyment of formal education.

[1] Although
men and boys may also be domestic workers, this report focuses on the women and
girls who comprise the overwhelming majority of workers in this sector around
the world.

[2]
Throughout this report, the term migrant worker denotes a person who has
traveled transnationally, consistent with the definition in the International
Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members
of Their Families (Migrant Workers Convention), adopted December 18, 1992, U.N.
G.A. Res. 45/158 (entered into force July 1, 2003), art. 2.1: The term
migrant worker refers to a person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has
been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a
national.